


for want of a pilot

by peradi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU, First Order, First Order Poe Dameron, Hux suffers so very much, M/M, References to Sexual Assault, hux is a piece of shit but we love him, hux is a wine mum, hux is very british, hux smokes endlessly, look this fic is eighty per cent hux snarking at people, who doesn't want to read that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 09:24:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6560893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Presenting Poe Dameron: the best pilot in the First Order.</p><p>Otherwise known as: the Resistance's belief in the power of redemption may well be their undoing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been a long time in the making. 
> 
> it was meant to be a oneshot but obviously that failed. 
> 
> thanks to osteolojist on tumblr for being my dreadful, dreadful cheerleader (i want a book review comment each _chapter_ missy mmkay?) and thanks to notbecauseofvictories for inspiring the bit about kylo ren comprehensively failing at handing in intelligence reports.
> 
>  
> 
> for those of you who want a soundtrack: http://8tracks.com/depugnare/ribs-that-hide-hungry-hearts

 

> _For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;_
> 
> _For want of a shoe, the horse was lost;_
> 
> _For want of a horse, the rider was lost;_
> 
> _For want of a rider, the message was lost;_
> 
> _For want of the message, the battle was lost;_
> 
> _For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost,_
> 
> _And all for the want of a horseshoe nail._
> 
>  

Hux needs a fag and another drink and, also, a blaster.

He’s not going to use it on himself. Suicide’s for cowards, that much he knows (and the more you beat your children the stronger they grow, as his dear departed mother once said -- ) anyway, the blaster is for Kylo Ren. Put him out of his misery. Put him out of _everyone’s_ cunting misery because let me tell you the First Order is based on -- here’s a wild guess! -- fucking _order_ and this batshit mad-dog _thing,_ half devil and half _child_ , is not exactly conducive to said order --

He is very drunk. _Appallingly_ drunk.

 

\--

 

Rewind.

Here is a man on the edge. Here is a man with a mad dog that happens to look like a man slung up over his shoulder in a soldier’s lift, here is a man with blood smeared all over his face. Not one bit of the blood is his.

 _Bring him back_ Snoke had said and  the words were thrumming with _you will you will you will_ and the Supreme Leader has this uncanny awful _knack_ of layering his orders with Force-strength, Jedi mindtrick _bullshit_ and the result is this: Hux finds himself obligated -- nay, _compelled_ \-- to carry the bastard back himself personally.

Maybe this is punishment. Maybe. There’s something hideously ironic about it: Hux carrying Ren off a dying planet. Propping him up. Just like the First Order props up his useless _useless_ collection of sharp-toothed rabble _monsters_ \--

Ahem. That’s unfair. The Knights of Ren are useful, in that they are profoundly good at killing things.

They are useless in this manner: killing things is integral to conquest. The ability to kill things is not exactly useful when you are trying to rule. Win with the blaster, not rule with it.

Here’s a fun fact: Hux is almost certain he’s less of a warmongerer than most. He wants to rule. Not much point ruling over cooked rubble, is there?

Starkiller was meant to be a last resort.

And now --

 

\--

 

“Thank you General,” says Snoke. “You may escort my apprentice home. And now I advise you rest.”

 

\--

 

Hux does not rest.

Hux hits the alcohol _hard_.

Because of course he does. Everything he has built, everything he has ever built, is ruined. There’s something just under his heart, lodged like shrapnel, and it is chewing at his guts. He recalls a story his father once told him: of a boy who stole a fox cub, secreted it under his cloak to avoid detection, permitted the cub to eat and eat at his stomach until he bled out, just to avoid the shame of being caught.

 _Good boy,_ said Brendol Hux. Hux -- the Younger -- could only think that he was a fool, a stupid and vain fool, better to be shamed than die, better to be caught and die, for what use are you if you are dead? Dead is nothing; death is oblivion; any pain is better than this.

He finds himself rethinking this assessment.

“Everything,” he says, and can manage no more. He stares into oblivion. His fingers splay into his hair and all he can smell is the hot heavy charnelhouse reek of Ren’s blood. It’s everywhere. On his hands and on his face and congealing on his skin and for one mad moment he sees himself sticking his fingers into the soft, fleshy part of his throat and vomiting it up in great scarlet gouts.

Get up, he tells himself, get up and go to the refresher block and take a shower and --

He makes it to the refresher block. He doesn’t make it to the toilet before puking up what feels like everything he has ever eaten.

 

\--

 

This is what it is to be Brendol Hux: you have failed so monumentally that your self -- your actual _sense of self --_ is coming loose from its moorings.

He’s always succeeded. Always. He’s just like the Order, young and scrappy and hungry, and how he wants to swallow the stars whole. The galaxy he is destined to rule. Planets that will kneel at his name. This is his legacy, his purpose.

(He’s been in trouble before of course -- that nonsense about Trillia springs to mind -- but he has never _never_ disgraced himself this badly.)

FN-2187 was a Stormtrooper.

That is the problem, the whole problem. His Stormtroopers: _his_. Ren has his Knights -- starved, feral things plucked from the Outer Rim -- and Hux has his troopers and --

And they’ve failed. And, yes, yes, one can argue that just because FN-2187 broke his programming and fucked off doesn’t mean that they all will but please consider this: Hux has never failed.

Ever.

(There are very rarely second chances in the Order.)

And so conclude this: Hux does not fail, Hux _cannot_ fail and he _has_ failed and for one miserable night he drinks and drinks and vomits and drinks some more and lets Ren’s blood dry onto his flesh until it cracks apart like lizardskin or desert earth splitting or something. And he drinks until metaphors fail him and he drinks until he passes out, slumped in his bed in a maelstrom of random images and thoughts: fox cubs and bad poetry ( _suicide is for cowards this much i know; the more you beat your children the stronger they grow_ ) and he had his shot and he threw it away and the taste of blood, of _Ren_ hot and sour on his throat, and blackness takes him.

 

\--

 

Morning comes.

Well. It isn’t morning. Not technically. It is the designated Waking Hour and thus it is morning and Hux suspects that he is still drunk because that last sentence did not make the remotest bit of sense.

He manages to get to his refresher block. He vomits again. He has a hot shower, works the crusts of blood loose from his hair. Experiences the _singular_ discomfort that his trying to rip off scabs from hair in _intimate places_  and _how in the name of all that is holy did Ren’s blood get there?_

He has a hangover the size of the _universe_.

 

\--

 

He goes to check on Ren. He does not want to, but he thinks of that fox cub dining on the boy’s innards because the boy was too much of a fool to admit his folly, and he goes. Ren is in a medically induced coma. His face is a wreck. The entire room reeks of blood and cooked flesh: battlefield smells Hux thought he had long since left behind.

Hux deposits a sachet of stims into his caf and takes a long sip. Regards the shameless pile of meat and bone that is, apparently, the First Order’s greatest treasure. Resentment is a living, hungry thing curling up his spine. It curdles his stomach. He has worked for everything he has, built himself from the ground up, and here is Ren with stars in his eyes and the universe bending to his whim. Apparently.

The Force exists, but she’s a fucking mad bitch.

Hux drains the cup.

 

\--

 

 _Bring my apprentice to me. I will complete his training_.

Here’s the thing: Hux is eighty to ninety per cent certain that Snoke will kill him. He has _failed_ and the enormity of his failure is such that he is astonished he is still standing. It trails after him like a great hungry dog, waiting for him to flag, to fall; and then it will pounce; and then it will feast.

Still. He’s alive and he’s breathing and he has been given a mission and he is _damned_ if he fails it. Bring Ren to Snoke. That’s it. He can do that. He can --

“Sir! Sir!” Frantic red stands stark on Mitaka’s cheek. His eyes are wild and wide and he’s shaking all over. “Sir -- it’s Ren -- he’s awake -- we can’t _stop him_ \--”

Fuck.

 

\--

 

The Force is a mad bitch and Kylo Ren is her loyal son.

Five MedDroids shattered, two doctors dead, and Hux almost joins them.

He’s not even in the fucking room. He’s halfway down the corridor, heading towards the scrum, when invisible hands seize him by the throat and yank him the remainder of the journey. He finds himself hauled up in front of Ren’s manic, white face, suspended like a carcass on a hook. His boots dangle; his heart jumps into his throat and stays there, singing panic down his jugular.

Hux shows his teeth. He refuses to die like this, die at the hands of some spoiled and stupid brat who thinks that just because he has been Chosen he is entitled to everything. Damn it, Hux _deserves_ to rule, Hux has fought to rule, and now he is dangling like so much useless meat in the grasp of some magical _nonsense_ and his anger surges through him, hot and raw as blood, as alcohol brewed from rotten fruit (like he and Trillia drank at the Academy, oh so long ago) and he forces himself to calm down. And he thinks: _kill me then, fine, but how in the name of_ **_fuck_ ** _do you expect to get revenge?_

And Kylo Ren drops him. Hux whoops in air, rubbing his throat as he does so, and stands. The med-bay is a wreck. Lights smashed, bed overturned, blood oozing out of those unfortunate to be caught up in his tumult and Hux _snarls_ . His ship, his crew, _his his his_ and he has gone from eating up stars to watching as some stupid child rips apart the innards of his ship. He has fought and worked for everything he has ever built and Kylo Ren was running off doing Force only knows what. What is the point of the Force, of the Knights, of _any of them_ if they cannot he there when needed?

Kylo Ren hears all of this (he was fucking _meant to_ the mind-reading _bastard_ ) and he lifts his hand to strike Hux across the face. Hux blocks the blow, curls his fingers tight around Ren’s wrist -- bird-bones creak, Force around this boy is _frail_ \-- and _yanks._

Kylo’s got maybe three inches and three stone on Hux, but he’s cooked from the inside out and he can barely stand and he topples over. Hux slaps his free palm onto Kylo’s bare chest, just to the left of a shiny flick of scar tissue, propping him up. Oh, the sweet irony of it all. “You don’t get to die,” he says, his teeth clamped together like the durasteel spikes of a bantha trap. His jaw a single hard line. A vein pulses in his temple and around them is the tense, shrill silence that precedes or follows violence. Like the electric thrill before lightning strikes, or the smoke-choked aftermath of battle.

“I will not -- I will not permit them to --”

“You don’t _get to die_ ,” says Hux, again. The words are nails, hammered neatly into Ren’s chest and eyes and tongue. “Do you understand?”

“I do not want to,” says Ren. Petulant. Lower lip nudged out in a pout of all things, and he spends most of his time behind that heavy mask -- no wonder he doesn’t know how to control his facial expressions. Hux’s skin crawls with contempt. Sick child, spoiled boy, mad dog, and the universe saw fit to bestow such power upon him.

“Then stop killing your doctors.”

“They would have doped me -- “

“Sedatives. You’re bleeding internally. You need --”

“I cannot be sedated. I would lose control.”

“Oh, because you are so very much in control at present --” and Ren’s hand twitches again. Hux rolls his eyes. “Very _well_. We’ll do it the battlefield way.”

Hux’s smile is a sharp feral slash: all teeth.

 

\---

 

He stays to watch the surgery.

He has to make sure it goes well, of course.

His presence there is for purely _professional_ reasons.

 

\--

 

“Who’s Trillia?” says Ren, the next time Hux comes to visit.

 _Where were you,_ Hux wants to say, _where were you when Han Solo was blowing up Starkiller, where were you where the fuck were you, the only thing you are meant to do is kill things and you couldn’t even --_

The light-strip ahead wavers, fizzles, _pops_. The room is plunged into black.

“Stop reading my mind,” says Hux, irritably, “and maybe your tantrums would occur with less regularity.”

“That was not a tantrum, General,” says Ren. “If you wish to see me angry --”

“Oh _shut up_. I don’t have time for your melodrama.” Hux’s night vision is worse than useless -- he’s lived his entire life aboard ships that are illuminated in hard and sterile strips, dayless, nightless -- and so he can only see a smear of blue where a meddroid stays dormant, awaiting usage. Not a scrap of Ren’s face, but he can imagine it well enough: mouth contorted in what Ren probably imagines to be a feral, furious snarl but looks more like a tyke deprived their favourite toy.

“I am not a child,” says Ren.

Oh no: not a snarl. A pout. Lower lip pushed out, no doubt, and a sullen slump to his heavy shoulders.

Hux taps his wrist-piece. The back-up power activates, stark white light that throws deep shadow. Ren, reclining against his pillow, looks like something scavenged from a grave. Hux was right. He is pouting.

“Who’s Trillia?” Ren repeats.

“No one of any importance. I am here to reinforce what you have been already told: stay in bed. The MedDroids have informed me that you are trying to get up.”

“I must train --”

“Nonsense. You must heal. You refuse to let us use proper medical practice on you and so you must endure this lengthy recovery period.”

“Oh General, how you care.”

“I was given a mission; I will fulfill it. You don’t get to die, and you certainly do not --”

Ren tries to stand. The air is greasy, thrumming, like a swarm of invisible insects has suddenly materialised: is this the Force? Anyway. It doesn’t matter. Hux grabs his shoulders, shoves him back down, is rewarded by a clutch of ghost fingers at his throat. For a moment he cannot breathe -- and then the moment passes. He is left clasping Ren, pinioning him to the bed, while those invisible insects march all over his flesh, under his coat, scurrying into his scalp.

“Rest,” says Hux. Ren’s skin is sweat-slick and bloodless and slimy under his hands. Hux shows his teeth, releases Ren with a hard sound of disgust, fusses over his gloves. They’re tainted with a patina of fever-sweat. He’s going to have to have them burned.

“You don’t want me to die,” says Ren. Then he visibly gathers himself, smiles his rancid smile and says: “So, did Trillia touch you in bad places?”

Hux laughs. Ren gets entirely the wrong impression; his smile widens a tooth or two.

“Did he take your virginity? Make you cry? _Awww_ poor little Hux, all alone, too weak to fight him off -- “

“No one touched me at the Academy; permitting rape isn’t exactly conducive to building a strong high command,” says Hux, tiring of Ren’s attempts at intimidation. “Trillia is none of your business. _Goodbye_.”

And with that he walks out.

 

\--

 

“Tell me who Trillia is --”

“Why are you not _in bed_ \--”

“I’m _fine_ ,” says Kylo Ren and he may be wearing his heavy, fucked-up helmet (he’s not a soldier, not a proper soldier, because he takes no pride in what he wears or the weapons he wields, Force _around_ he has this habit of swanning about in a tattered charred up cloak and are those _bitemarks_ on that helmet and did no one --did no one _sit him down_ and say that the strength of a hunter is known by the gloss of his _hide_ . Force have some _pride_ )--

Anyway. He’s wearing his helmet. And yet Hux can hear that plaintive little quiver in his voice, see that petulant push of his lower lip, because once you’ve seen under the mask then _well._ It’s like a spell: once seen through, ever broken. Kylo Ren can dress himself up in those rancid black robes (doesn’t the boy wash? He reeks of blood) and that bucket helmet and he’s still that boy in the hospital bed, throwing a tantrum and turning out the lights.

“Tell me who Trillia is,” Ren says again, injecting a little push of command and Hux has spent far too long around Snoke to _not_ recognise the demand of a Force mind-trick. He ignores it.

“No,” he says. Flat refusal. And a challenge. And Ren steps closer, looming -- or, at least, _trying_ to loom. Hux is only three inches shorter than him, thank you very much, and not that much lighter and really physical intimidation is such a _peasant_ move. He sneers. (Hux is very proud of his sneer.)

 _If you want the information so badly, you could pull it from my skull. And you don’t. Which leads me to conclude that you_ **_can’t_ ** **.**

“I could kill you,” Ren says. He’s still not moving.

“Well,” says Hux. “ _Yes_. Of course you could.” He wonders what it would look like to have that mask mounted at the foot of his bed, charred beyond any recognition, the wearer of said mask turned to ash. He finds himself smiling.

Ren tries to loom a little more. He’s actually _trying_ and it is pathetic. Hux laughs: it sounds like a dog choking on a bit of meat. “You’re five seconds away from keeling over.”

“ _Tell me_ ,” says Ren and Hux laughs again.

“No wonder the scavenger made such short work of you. He was a friend of mine, back at the Academy. Long gone now; pilot on the Outer Rim somewhere -- “ The words trotting out, sneering and callous and _completely unintended fuck_ **_fuck_ ** _\--_

Red flares on Hux’s cheekbones. Ren radiates smugness.

“Thank you General. That will be all.”

 

\--

 

The first indication Hux had of Kylo Ren existing was a complaint from the intelligence department.

“What the shit is this, Hux? I mean, what in the name of holy _fuck_ am I meant to do with this?”

“Calm down Trillia -- “

“Look at this, just _look at this_ \-- “ and with that Trillia slammed down a bit of parchment. Parchment. Goodness. Hux used the point of his pen to unfold it, fearing some kind of biological taint.

“What is it?”

“A report.”

“A -- _what?_ Really?”

“Yes. You know the Supreme Leader has been using new independent agents, right?”

“Of course.” Hux knew no such thing. Still: always pretend that you are in the loop. Trillia’s mad-dog smile indicated that he knew that Hux did not know and that little quip of his was his way of communicating said knowledge to Hux without seeming to be doing so. Force bless the double-speak they teach you at the Academy.

“Anyway. I got given this -- it’s a report from one of them, intelligence on the Gulbenkian Disaster. Three hundred and twelve Stormtroopers dead, major loss, apparently all part of the Leader’s plan and -- well. Look. This is their explanation.”

Hux examined  the parchment. Written, in what he strongly suspected was blood, were the words:

THE FORCE DID IT.

\--that’s it.

Oh wait, yes, there was a little more. He nudged open the last fold.

A childish scrawl:

KYLO REN, MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF REN, DOES DECREE THIS.

“Oh,” said Hux.

“Yeah,” said Trillia. “ _Oh_.”

 

\--

 

Trillia is -- not dead, but gone, may as well be dead. Could _well_ be dead: it isn’t like Hux has been keeping tabs on the boy. Still, he finds himself chewing over old memories as they draw ever-nearer to Snoke’s base.

And he’s been thinking.

They need time. They need time to rebuild (he’s going to burn the Resistance he will he _will )_ but Hux is a leader, not a warmongerer, nothing like that bitch Organa. He needs to expand the First Order, take advantage of the Hosnian’s system’s destruction, crush the challenges to his (and the Supreme Leader’s) authority; spread the word that the First Order may have lost her greatest weapon but she is not anywhere _close_ to defeated.

They need to stop the Resistance spreading. Already, Stormtroopers are trying to rebel. Already, people are telling stories of the fresh-wakened Force, of FN-2187-who-was-a-Stormtrooper, of that idiot girl who came from the hot red flank of the desert. Of Leia Organa, of Han Solo: old legends gaining new life.

War on a different front. War of hearts and minds, complicated war, the sort of war that is not politics or battle or Starkiller’s red hungry glare -- but _propaganda_. Intelligence.  

( _you have this way of making people talk how do you --)_

 _(thing is hux, people_ **_like_ ** _me. They want to follow me. You’ve never got the knack, have you?)_

 

_\--_

 

By the time they get to Snoke, Hux has a plan.

 

\--

 

“I know this boy,” says Snoke, before Hux even opens his _mouth_ . “I have sensed him. He feels the Force run through him; he is an excellent choice, and a wasted resource. You will bring him to the Finalizer and you will deploy him to the Resistance. _Yes_. A most excellent idea.”

“How can you be sure that they will welcome him with open arms?” says Ren.

“Because of his mother, dear boy,” says Snoke. “Because Leia Organa will want to welcome home Shara Bey’s long lost son.”

 


	2. an immigrant who's unafraid to step in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here's the mission, says hux. here is what you do.

> turns out we have a secret weapon
> 
> an immigrant you know and love
> 
> whose unafraid to step in
> 
>  

“I’m a little proud of him, actually,” says Hux.

“What?”

“Well -- one of my troopers goes up against you and very nearly wins.”

“He is _dead_. I sense the grief of the scavenger; she howls her sorrow to every corner of the stars --”

“ _Howls her sorrow to every corner of the stars_ , Force _around and above_ Ren -- are you an aspiring poet?”

And Ren, somehow, gives the _impression_ of frowning without removing his helmet . It’s an aura; a simmering, charged sense of _this displeases me_ \-- much in the way Hux’s old cat used to communicate her dislike of his attention.

(Used to; used to. Little Millie is long, long dead -- and that’s _another_ thing he’s going to grill Trillia about. _You killed my fucking cat, you arsehole --)_

_(Why did you even have a cat, why did it sleep in my TIE engine, not my fault it had a fucking death-wish, probably comes from living with you day in day out; Force above and around if I had to do that I would --)_

“You are in a good mood,” says Ren. It’s an accusation. Hux rolls his eyes, digs a hand into his pocket, pulls out a box of fags and lights up. Says, with smoke spilling out of his mouth:

“I relish the prospect of tearing Organa’s heart out of her chest. I relish the idea of getting under the skin of that Force-damned Resistance, spreading tales about the dead -- Fn-2187 was a Stormtrooper _indeed_.”

“You cannot control stories.”

“Of course not,” says Hux, patiently. “But you _alter_ them; that is the point. That is why I say that FN-2187 was a Resistance plant. That he wasn’t a Stormtrooper at all, but --”

“--you tell people that your ships were infiltrated,” says Ren. Hux shows his teeth.

_Better that than --_

“I understand,” says Ren, “better to admit the failings of one unit, one commander, than admit that your programming is fallible and flawed and folly and --”

“Oh, what masterful wordplay,” Hux bites back. “Poet indeed.”

“I do not like it when you are in a good mood. You _talk_ too much.”

_And you look like a knock-off Vader fanboy._

“I _heard that_.”

And Hux, Hux who is alive and whole and unharmed and about to get the fuck off this ship and leave Ren to the rest of his training; Hux who has a plan and a mission and things to do. Well. He grins, unconquerable and sly, and says: “You were fucking _meant to_.”

 

\--

 

Hux clicks his heels together, spins on the spot, gesturing with his cigarette. _The Force is the maddest of bitches oh yes she is, and Kylo Ren is her most loyal son, and both_ _of them_ _are out of my fucking hair_.

One foot dragged to the other; left spin; up onto the balls of his feet. He was taught to dance for diplomatic reasons: old Imperial families value that poncy nonsense, manners maketh the man and all that, and it was all a facade because the First Order is better than the Empire ever was or will be. Tarkin was a fool among fools, all caught up with nebulous concepts like _honour_ and Hux will say their pretty words and burn them all alive.

Oh, he cannot _wait_ to face the likes of Callimina Archer (good I mperial stock, his father always said) with a blaster in his hand and a crown heavy gold on his brow and blood on his face and he’ll shoot her children before shooting _her._

 _Children_ \-- yup, children, so many of them, five last count -- because she has this obsession with bloodlines. Legacy. Who you are descended from _matters_ to her. Bull _shit._ Hux is General because he worked himself to bone and sinew. Hux was never given anything by his father, apart from a good thrashing now and then.

The Order is a meritocracy; that is the entire point. The rancid, decaying (former, he thinks with no small measure of delight, _former it is all ash now_ ) Republic valued family. If your mother was this, then you were that. Nothing to do with merit or talent or _anything_ apart from: hey, probably best to enter into the family business of being a gigantic pain in the arse of the civilised galaxy.

Hux hums an old melody to himself, something that they played at the Academy, some song about a girl following her lover to war. Imagine a box, he was told, with four points and you put your feet _in_ those points and glide from one to the other; and he doesn’t need a partner to dance, he does it well enough on his own. Maybe there’s a metaphor in that. Maybe not.

(Maybe it has been seventy two hours since he last slept and maybe he’s had to jam a wodge of cotton wool up his nose to stop the bleeding, because snorting stims plays havoc with the sensitive tissue there. _Maybe_.)

“Uh -- General?”

Hux stops humming, brings his feet together, clips his heels. Considers how to recover his dignity.

Then he recalls that it is _Phasma_ and it doesn’t really matter what she thinks of his dignity -- or lack thereof.

“Ren’s gone,” he says, by way of explanation.

“We are poorer for his absence,” says the Stormtrooper. For someone quite so savage, she’s an excellent diplomat.

“Oh of course. The ship weeps.”

“What are our orders?”

“First of all,” says Hux, “we get the hell out of here. Leave our esteemed colleague to his training.” He wonders if _training_ is a euphemism for _extreme torture_ \-- the Order does like its euphemisms. _Decommissioning_ for _death by blaster_ . _Enhanced interrogation_ for _mindrape by an unstable Vader-clone with questionable personal hygiene_.

“And then?” Phasma presses.

Hux jams a fag between his teeth, speaks around it, “Follow orders, Captain. Don’t question them.” Then he remembers: it’s Phasma. He _likes_ Phasma. “We stop this nonsense of revolution spreading. Time for good old-fashioned battle.”

He can’t see Phasma’s face, but he can imagine it: her bloodhungry smile, her bright-lit eyes.

 

\--

 

“You’ve never killed anyone, have you?” Kylo Ren had said, once.

“Pardon?” said Hux. This was the early days of Starkiller, when they were in the process of obliterating all those pesky sentient species that had called the ice-planet home.

( _We could use rathtars_ , he’d said to a room full of officers, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth -- and then he’d remembered that Trillia wasn’t there, hadn’t been there for years, and no one would get the joke.) 

“You push buttons,” said Ren, “and that’s it -- things burn. You’ve never watched the light fade from someone’s eyes, you’ve never --”

“I don’t see why that matters,” said Hux. “I can kill people by submitting a budget and a spreadsheet. Annihilate species in a boardroom. It’s a little less messy, but it is still death. Besides. Why does it matter? Are we having a competition? Did you neglect to tell me?”  

Hux snapped his fingers at Mitaka. “Remind me -- how many lifeforms were on the planet we made into Starkiller?”

“Four million, two hundred thousand and twenty three,” said Mitaka, whip-fast.

“There we go. Four million, two hundred thousand and twenty three. And that’s just this morning. Give me until this evening and I can orchestrate another four genocides. If I chose.”

“It makes you weak,” insisted Ren. “It means you cannot understand the true meaning of death -- “

“There is no meaning in death, Ren. There’s no meaning in life. We’re all just...here. And I kill people when I must. Last time I checked, I didn’t have to drop a body at your feet to justify my command.” Hux sighs. Cracks his shoulders back under his coat. “Is that all?”

 

\--

 

“Black Squadron, requesting landing space,” says an oh so familiar voice and there’s a thrill up Hux’s spine and a grin itches at the corners of his mouth -- but he clamps it down, gestures to an underling, who grants them permission to use the hanger.

When Hux arrives, the pilots are helmeted and lined up, precise and clean. It does the soul good to see soldiers like this: regimented, ordered, as they should be. His soldiers. His Order. Nothing like the rabid slump of the Knights of Ren -- he’s met them; he was not impressed -- or the madness of the Resistance. This is how the galaxy _should_ be.

(This is how the galaxy will be.)

“General!” barks the captain, and salutes with mechanical precision. The others do the same: perfect synchrony. They might as well be droids. Hux is positively _gleeful_.

(Not that you would be able to tell. Hux is well aware that his face has two main expressions: constipated and disdainful or furious. He is at peace with this. He tried, once, to smile at his subordinates to put them at ease -- they looked even _more_ frightened. He smiles like a shark, like a wolf, like someone planning to eat you up and lick the bones clean.)

(Trillia was the one who could --)

(Come on, come on, the time for nostalgia is later.)

“At ease, soldiers. Captain D-34, Attend me, if you will,” and with this Hux turns on his heel, strides towards his office, Trillia in his wake.

(This is how it _should be_.)

 

\--

 

_Have you ever killed anyone --_

_Of course I have Ren, I’m a fucking soldier. How do you think I got this job?_

Magda rested warm on his shoulder. (Does naming your gun after your mother make up for loathing her? Possibly?)

“So, Jatara just dropped dead?” says the boy who will grow up to be Trillia.

“I know. What a tragedy.”

“Died of a sudden bullet to the brain. Quite unexpected.”

“Yup.”

“Bit harsh, Brenny.”

“She said my gun didn’t work. I built it myself and she said it didn’t work, that it was silly and useless, that it was _unregulation_ \-- that it went against the principle of the Academy. _We are all soldiers taught in the same way, for the same purpose_ ,” he said, letting his voice slip-slide higher, aping Jatara’s snotty Coruscant accent, “ _and crafting your own weapon is a gross violation of that sentiment. You’re just a silly little boy; it’s a silly little gun; it won’t work_ ,” and here Hux crooked a hard, merciless grin and planted two fingers against his temple in the universal gesture of _and then she ran into my bullet ten times._

“Oh, then the bitch definitely deserved to die.”

“I’m the best sniper in the Academy --”

“--yeah don’t go telling people that when they’re looking for who shot her.”

“Headmaster’ll know it was me. He won’t care.” Hux slumped back into his bunk, shoulderblades sharp against the wall.

“He did say that we shouldn’t start killing each other until we’re ten,” said the boy who would, one day, caused genocide after genocide. He lay on his belly on the opposite bunk, reading propped open under his elbows, ignored.

“I’ve always been precocious.”

“That you have, Brenny. That you have. Still. You’ve got to work on that temper of yours --  you’ll never make General if you keep shooting everyone who pisses you off.”

 

\--

 

General Hux bears these wise words in mind every single time he has to deal with Kylo Ren.

 

\--

 

“You can remove your helmet,” says Hux.

A hiss. A click. And Trillia tucks his black pilot helmet under his arm, standing stiff to attention, and Force above and around he looks _terrible._

He’s got the same oilslick black hair but it’s grown: long unkempt curls swept back, held in place by a crust of sweat. Cheeks hollowed out by hunger or stress, yellow bruise under his left eye, mossy growth of beard,

“Sir, I would like to take this opportunity to state that the fault is entirely mine. My troops had nothing to do with it and no knowledge of -- “

Hux is thrown, to say the least. “What have you _done_ \--”

“--uh,” says Trillia. “Well. I assumed that -- “

“Captain -- Trillia -- you aren’t being decommissioned. Neither are your pilots.”

“Oh,” says Trillia. “In which case, I would like to recant my prior statement.”

“So you’ve not done anything wrong?”

“No, sir. Unless -- unless I have.” Hux understands. He does. In the Order, there’s no question of innocence once you’ve been accused: the guilty are guilty, and there is no turning back from an accusation of treachery or incompetence. _Why_ Trillia is attempting such a complex, strange lie is anyone’s guess. Unless --

“Are you concerned for your soldiers? Is that it?” Hux is astounded. Pilots are just troopers with wings: part of the machinery, cogs and gears. To be willing to risk your own life for those under you is _absurd_. High command is not easily replaced; troopers are and --

Then he remembers: Trillia _is_ a pilot.

Trillia smiles. Lines corrugate from the corner of his mouth to the corner of his eyes. He’s no older than Hux and yet --

Well. Living on the Outer Rim will do that to you.

“They’re mine,” says Trillia, simply, and _that_ Hux can understand.

( _His Order it is his it belongs to him and how dare Ren -- )_

“We have a mission for you,” says Hux.

“--oh,” says Trillia, and of all the things he expected it is clear he expected _this_ least of all. “You do recall that I was banned from any and all intelligence. You _do_ recall that I was demoted so _spectacularly_ that it is a capital crime in the Academy to speak my _name_. That most people think I am dead, that there would be the worst kind of scandal among the old Imperial loyalists if they found out I was on the field again, that --”

“You do recall,” Hux replies icily, “that I was made _General_ in your absence. I don’t give the faintest flying fuck about the opinion of the old Imperials. The Supreme Leader agreed that it is time for you to return. And return you shall.”

“What happens to my pilots?”

“Why do you care?” Hux’s brows pull together in befuddlement. “They will be sent wherever I decree they are needed.”

“They are good soldiers; they shouldn’t be sent off to die in some hopeless firefight. They’re more than just cannon fodder.”

“Then I will ensure that they are placed where their skills are put to best use.”

“Not good enough. I want them back on the Outer Rim. Put Tallymark in charge. She’s clever and bright and vicious. She’ll do you proud.”

Hux is -- Hux is _confused_. He pulls a pack of fags from his pocket, offers Trillia one. He accepts, produces a lighter, and for a moment there is contemplative, companionable silence.

Trillia says, “Still smoke these old things?” He holds up the cigarette. “They taste like the inside of a blaster.”

“They’re cheap and plentiful. Rather like your favours at the Academy.”

Trillia chuckles, but he doesn’t relax. His shoulders are a hard line beneath the gloss of his uniform; his legs tense. He’s ready to run or fight; thorny with distrust; a wild animal yanked in from pasture. No banter, no returning fire: just the wild-eyed stare of a smuggler-hunting pilot towards a General who could have him killed with a snap of his fingers.

“The job is -- “

“No. Nothing about the job; I want your word that my pilots will be safe.”

“You aren’t really in a position to be making demands.”

Trillia shows his teeth -- it is the furthest thing from a smile -- and stubs the cigarette out on Hux’s desk (Hux winces). “I am, actually. There’s always a choice.”

“The choice here being: do as I say, or I’ll have you killed.”

“‘Twas ever thus. Look. I want to help; I really do. I’ve heard the rumours; we watched Starkiller burn; the whole fucking galaxy is singing about Organa and her personal army -- Resistance my left bollock, it’s one warmongering she-wolf and her cubs. Nothing to _do_ with democracy. She just wants her son back.”

Something sharp and bright lances between Hux’s eyes. His mouth sours. “Her son?” he echoes, without thinking, without quite _believing_ \--

“Ah. You didn’t know. Ben. Ben Organa -- her boy.”

“He vanished,” Hux says at once, “I knew that; I knew that --” and pieces slot together, fall into place, the boy, the child --

The Skywalker temper.

“That son of a bitch,” he says.

And then, “Kylo Ren? _Ben?_ Force above and _around_ that pretentious _bastard_. Kylo Ben. Crylo Ben.” He laughs -- can’t help himself. Trillia smirks.

“I know, right? What a _child_.”

“A dangerous child.”

“Why didn’t you know?”

“Why would I guess? The boy’s half-mad. I thought he’d come from the Outer Rim like the rest of his degenerate knights.”

“Are they that bad?”

“Ah, Trillia, I don’t gossip.”

“I just gave you the information that Kylo Ren would kill to protect,” snaps Trillia. Hux grins.

“More fool you.”

“I hate you,” says Trillia, with tremendous fondness. “Now -- my pilots.”

“They’ll be sent back to the Outer Rim to hunt smugglers; TG-0932 will lead -- “

“You know her number?”

“Of course I do. I keep track of what belongs to me.”

“I don’t belong to you --”

“Keep telling yourself that Trillia,” coos Hux, checking his wristpiece absently, watching as Kylo Ren’s tracking device gets further and further away. “Keep telling yourself that. So. Do you accept your promotion?”

There’s a choice. Of course there is: always, always, always.

Trillia’s smile is hungry, shows each one of his teeth. “Delighted to serve under you, General.”

“Come on then. There’s a prisoner we need you to interrogate.”

“My knives are a little rusty,” says Trillia, “But I’ll break out the old rack for you.”

“Shut up. You don’t torture people. I’ve never seen you even strike a prisoner. You just...talk at them. It’s bizarre.”

“They like me. I’m likeable.”

“They think you care. That’s the trick I’ve never been able to master.”

“I wonder why,” says Trillia.

 

\--

 

The prisoner’s face is like an old fruit, all split open and spitting seeds, only those aren’t seeds, they’re teeth, and Dameron sighs at the sight.

“Sorry about all this,” he says. “The Stormtroopers are bastards when they get their hands on a prisoner. Savage little shits, the lot of them.”

The prisoner’s in the brig. Someone’s bound him up on a rack, cruciform style, arms and legs clamped in durasteel, wrists and ankles bruised dark where he’s struggled.

He doesn’t talk.

“So, how shall we do this? I talk, then you? The other way round? It’s down to you. Why don’t we start with something simple?”

Dameron’s carrying a cup of water. He offers it to the prisoner, who twists his head aside.

“Don’t be a child. I know you’re thirsty. There’s nothing in it. See?” Dameron takes a swig from the cup to demonstrate, then offers it again. This time the prisoner permits Dameron to tip the contents down his throat. Streams of water catch in his split lips, run quick and pink over his neck, soak into his burned orange uniform. “There we go. Better, isn’t it?”

The pilot says nothing. He’s a human male in middle age, greying at the temples, dark eyes and pale skin and a softening gut. Dameron knows his name: Temmin Wexley, Captain. Worked for the New Republic. Now the widely acknowledged best recon pilot in the Resistance.

( _We need him to talk_ , Hux had said, and no more.)

Not that such an acclaim is saying much. There are, perhaps, three dozen pilots in the entire Resistance. It’s not exactly the Alliance.

( _What about?_ And Dameron knows that it is a test -- they wouldn’t pull him out of exile for the sake of one interrogation -- but he can’t for the life of him work out _what_ or _why_.)

“Can I call you Temmin?”

The man’s lips part. There’s a sputter of bloody froth, then: “My friends call me Snap. You can call me Captain Wexley. I’m not telling you anything. I know how this works. You’re the nice one. They get someone to be the nice one. They get someone to be the _naughty_ one. Alternate between kindness and violence until I get whiplash, get confused, and talk. I’ve been fighting longer than you’ve been alive, boy. I ain’t going to tell you anything.”

“Oh, but rules change Mr Wexley. Have you heard of the Knights of Ren?”

“Yes. I have. I know what they do to people.”

“So you know that you’re going to have the information ripped from your head. I’ve been heard it’s rather unpleasant.”

Kylo Ren is a very long way away. Wexley does not need to know this.

“I also know that even if I tell you everything, they’ll do it anyway, just to make sure.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Convince me you’re telling the truth.”

“C’mere, let me whisper in your ear.”

Dameron steps forwards, well out of biting range. Wexley spits in his face. He sighs, pushes away the red-tinged phlegm. “I feel we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Poe Dameron. I’m a captain, like you. Up until pretty recently, I was hunting smugglers along the Outer Rim. Some stupid bastard thought that transporting rathtars was a good idea…”

“Wait. What did you say your name was?”

“Poe. Poe Dameron.”

Wexley blinks; his mouth hangs slack; then he shakes his head. “No. Not possible. Who was your father?”

“Does that matter?”

Wexley is staring at him, staring _into_ him, and there’s no menace in the look -- just a terrible, hungry hope. That’s a good sign, normally. When a prisoner has hope, even a glimmer of it, then they can be manipulated. Dameron swallows down his unease.

“Yes. Was your mother Shara Bey?”

“I never knew my mother. She died.”

“Yeah. She did. But your father --”

“My father died as well. He was a traitor. Hung himself when I was thirteen.”

“What did he do?”

“He was a pencil pusher, worked with droids --”

“No. What did he do? You said he was a traitor.”

“He hung himself,” and the fever-flush of anger trills down his spine. “You are meant to give your life to the Order. He took his. It was a selfish, stupid thing to do.”

“Your life is not your own.”

“No. It isn’t.”

This isn’t right. He’s angry. He inhales, holding the breath at the back of his throat, then exhales slow and deliberate. He wants a fag. He wants to punch Wexley in the face. He wants to be back in the sky, TIE fighter singing around him, his troopers at his side.

But he isn’t. He’s here, in the blood-reeking cell, with some prattling Resistance bastard, because -- because why? Brendol Hux is planning something. That never ends well for anyone.

“You --”

“I’m not going to tell the Order anything. But I want to tell you something, Poe.”

“Oh, we’re on first name terms now?”

“I knew your mother,” says Wexley.

His anger freezes. His skin contracts against his bones and he cannot _breathe_.

“No you didn’t. No one knew her. She’s dead.”

“Her name was Shara Bey. She fought for the Resistance. She fought with Leia Organa. She was a good woman. Kes Dameron was your father. He was a good man. They took him -- First Order agents, pretending to be smugglers. They took him, and they took you, and Shara killed herself trying to find you and --”

Poe backhands him across the face.

Wexley smiles, smiles with shattered teeth and red wet gums and continues, “--and here you are, First Order captain, blood on your hands. They’ve brainwashed you.”

“No one brainwashed me.” Dameron hears his voice but doesn’t register that he is speaking. He is tumbling down a long, dark tunnel. White stars streak by. “No one -- I was raised in the Academy, I serve the First Order, because without order the universe falls to chaos, to fucking chaos, to the degeneracy of the Republic --”

“Haven’t you ever had second thoughts? Haven’t you ever thought: this is wrong? Haven’t you...the First Order takes _babies_ and turns them into weapons, ever Stormtrooper was a fucking stolen _child_ . It commits _genocide --”_

_Trillia._

“There was. There was --”

Poe shakes his head.

“No. No, that’s --”

“Shut up!”

Poe’s fists quiver.

“What _happened_ to you?” says Wexley and there is kindness in his voice, and his eyes -- oh dear Force, his eyes are _sad_ . “What did they _do_ to you? You...you were a little boy when I last saw you. You were so small. You held my hand. You...you could barely speak and you said _Uncle Wex I wanna learn how to fly_ \--”

(Uncle Wex I wanna learn how to fly. I wanna learn to fly. I _wanna_ \--)

(No. _No_. Poe Dameron remembers and does not remember, and there was a tree -- there was --)

(A tree with blue-green leaves. A tree that hungered for the sky. _Poe climb higher_ , said a woman with kind eyes and --)

(No.)

“You were a little boy. You had parents who loved you. Do you believe in the Force?”

“I believe it’s real. I believe it’s cruel.”

(there was a man. A smiling man. He could not have been Poe’s father, because Poe’s father never ever smiled --)

“It is. But sometimes...sometimes it is good.”

Hux’s arrival is heralded by the click of his boots. He holds himself prissily, nose crinkling up at the smell, and regards the pilot like he’s nothing more than a smear of shit. “Shoot him, Trillia,” he says.

“What -- I thought -- “

“He’s told us what we need to know. What _you_ need to know.”

Cold, simmering anger under his skin. He’s being manipulated. He’s being _tested_.

Is the pilot lying? No. No he isn’t -- Dameron knows it.

“You want me to go into the Resistance then,” he says. “To play the prodigal son returned, to -- “ He wheels on Hux. “You could have just asked!”

“I need to know that you are loyal. Family is a powerful bond. For all I know, you will hear starry eyed tales of your mother and --”

A sharp report. Dameron puts two blaster bolts into Wexley without taking his eyes off Hux. “I am _loyal_ ,” he snarls, “loyal to my Order, to my troops -- to, Force damn me, to you. No need for these ridiculous _tests_. When did you get so fond of melodrama? Is Kylo Ren catching?”

“Compare me to him again and I’ll have you _shot_.”

“What does the First Order require of me?” says Captain Dameron.

 

\--

 

Before the war. Before BB-8 and Kylo Ren and the Force awakening, slowly, like a great predator cracking open her jaws; before this and that, before a  Stormtrooper named FN-2187 told himself that he would not kill for the Order --

Before.

Before all of this there were two boys, and they sat opposite General Brendol Hux.

Officially, he’s not a General. Officially, he’s not anything because the First Order isn’t permitted weaponry or soldiers or conquest. Put him in front of a representative of the New Republic, quote the Galactic Concordance, and he would smile his slim, sharp smile (like a blade tucked into a palm) and introduce himself as --

 _My name is Brendol Hux. I am a teacher_.

And, yes, this is true; but it is only _a_ truth and part of being Brendol Hux is telling the absolute truth, always, because he is an honourable man. Honesty, he says, is the most powerful weapon you can have.

Tell the truth, the absolute truth, but keep what you _truly_ mean caged behind your teeth, like a smile, like blood from a wound.

He is a teacher.

This is a very dangerous profession.

Before him sit two boys. They have names, but they do not use them in the Academy, where loyalty is stamped into bone and carved into sinew.

The taller is known as Unum. The smaller one is Duo. They are named after their ranking in the tests. They have maintained their names, and their positions, for the last three years.

Brendol Hux spends a moment looking at the boys. Neither move. Both are iron-shouldered and straight-lipped. Both are spit-shined boots and clear-ironed uniforms, creases sharp enough to cut.

“I have a puzzle for you,” says Brendol. He slides forward two datapads. “It is a hypothetical. Acknowledge you understand.”

“Yes sir,” they chorus. Both look at him.

“Regard the datapads.”

They do so.

“This is a planet. For the purposes of our exercise it will be known as Alpha Three Four. It is perfect for mining. However, it is full up with a particularly malicious native predator. This predator is protected under Section II of the Galactic Concordance for the Protection of Indigenous Life Forms. It is impossible to safely mine the mineral deposits in the planet with the predator present. However, we cannot move to dispose of it without facing action from the New Republic. You must clear the predator, and begin mining, in a quick and clean fashion -- without breaking the law. You have half an hour. There will be no conversation. Begin.”

Afterwards the time has ended: “Duo, present.”

Duo smiles. His teeth are very white.

“Sir, I propose the use of rathtars…”

 

\--

 

Later, a Stormtrooper named Finn says to a scavenger: “Have you heard of the Trillia Massacre?” and she replies _no_ and he says _good for you_ and here’s the thing about the First Order: they train with simulations. That’s what they have always done: substituting reality for computers. It is the best way to teach.

They are also very fond of euphemisms. _Decommissioned_ and _enhanced interrogation technique_ and sometimes, occasionally, they say _malicious native predator_ when they mean _sapient intelligent species that objects to the First Order trying to strip-mine their planet_ . And they say _hypothetical_ when they mean _first battle experience_ . And they say _Trillia_ when they mean _Dameron_ . And they say _Trillia_ when they mean _genocide_.

 

\--

 

“I _love you_ ,” says Trillia. “You’ve shown me that there’s another way -- a _better way_ \-- that I can leave the Order behind, that I don’t have to kill anymore that -- that I should adopt a _puppy_ and name it Leia in her honour, oh how wonderful -- “

“Take this _seriously_ Dameron.”

Dameron laughs, lolloped on Hux’s armchair, cigarette in one hand, glass of paint-stripper vodka in the other.

“I am, Brenny, I really am,” he says, takes another drag. “But you don’t need to lecture me on how to do my job; I’ve been in intelligence as long as I can remember.”

“This is a very important mission, Trillia.”

“How about this? Finn, I -- I don’t think I’m worthy of redemption. I don’t think I’m worth saving, I don’t, I have done terrible and _dreadful_ things. I...I don’t expect you to like me. I don’t expect you to trust me. But _believe_ me -- this is what you need to do.”

And in that moment, Dameron is big black eyes and earnesty. He plants his elbows on his thighs and leans forwards.  He’s the sort of man soldiers would follow into hell. The sort of man who would ten thousand times over just to save a single child. He’s the perfect martyr. He looks up through the disarray of his fringe and says, “Finn. _Trust me_.”

And then he grins, showing far too many teeth, scuffs his hair out of his face, leans back, spreading his knees and arching his back like a cat stretching.  “I’ll break them apart, I swear. I’ll burn them all and I’ll bring you his skull -- sound good?”

“Sounds excellent,” says Hux. There’s a low, thrumming heat in his stomach, spreading towards his groin. He thinks of Kylo Ren, howling as the medics cut into him, fixing his cooked innards. He thinks of the shudder of Starkiller beneath his feet, how the Hosnian system burned to ash, how Leia Organa will weep. “But first,” he says, “come here,” and his voice is a hungry, dark purr and Trillia blinks in surprise; but he catches on fast enough, sinking to his knees beneath Hux’s desk.

 

\--

 

Afterwards, Hux flips his collar up to hide the poppy-bright bruise on the side of his throat. “Remember,” Hux calls to the pilots destined to die in this mission, “you are doing the First Order a great service. Your death will have meaning.”

“See you in hell, my darlings,” coos Trillia, walking to his X Wing -- and it is his words that receive the loudest applause, foot-stamping and chants of _Dam-er-on_. If Hux was a lesser man, he would envy that ability: to inspire such loyalty with nothing but a smile and a wave. But he’s not a lesser man. He is just glad to have Trillia on his side.

(In another world, he’ll think that night, Trillia would not be in the Order. He would have grown up in the Republic. He might even fly for the Resistance, garbed in that hideous jumpsuit, called by his first name -- Poe, Poe of the Republic, Poe the traitor, Poe-in-Orange. But no. No, that’s not how it is here; he’s Trillia, spy and double agent, Dameron-in-Black, Hux’s most loyal hound, and this is the way it is meant to be.)

 

\--

 

“It’s a firefight,” Jessika Pava says, sliding her hands around the controls, effortlessly sweeping through the black flank of space. “X Wings and -- another X Wing? What’s going on?”

“Don’t know, Black Leader. Should we -- “

A sudden surge of static; her comms activate.

“ _Are you receiving? Are you receiving?”_ A male voice, wild with panic. “ _I can’t hold them off, I can’t, please help me, please -- “_

“Who are you?”

“ _I’m in the X Wing -- I ran away -- please, is it true? Is FN-2187 a Stormtrooper? Is he alive? Please, please --_ “The static amputates the next words. Jessika makes a split second decision.

“Light them up!” she barks, and the recon patrol loops into battle formation, engages the X Wings chasing. In a matter of heartbeats, the pursuing X Wings are smouldering wreckage.

Her comms lights up again.

“--thank you, thank you --”

“Hey, calm down. Who are you? Were you a trooper?”

“--yes. And I -- my mother. Is my mother alive?”

“Who -- who are you?”

“My name’s Poe Dameron. I’m Shara Bey’s son -- please tell me she’s alive, please, please, I’ve run so far -- I just want to go _home --”_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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